Disabled man who accused police of excessive force wins at Human Rights Commission

Pradel Content said police caused his chronic back pain condition to worsen when they used excessive force after accusing him of stealing a cell phone.

A disabled Montreal man who alleged police used unnecessary force and racially profiled him has won his case with the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Commission.

Pradel Content said that in March 24, two SPVM officers, Sebastien Laurin and Marc-Michel Roy, stopped him while he was walking with a group of three friends. Content was walking with a cane due to serious injuries he suffered in a car crash.

Content said the officers grabbed him and said they were looking for a black man in black clothes who had stolen a cell phone. Content showed the officers that he didn’t have the phone and was let go. However, when Content told the officers he had never been treated so terribly, one officer grabbed him and dragged him into a police van.

Content was eventually released from the van, but said he suffered serious pain while being searched and was later told by a doctor he had worsened his chronic back pain condition.

The Human Rights Commission completed its investigation in July 2018 and wrote a decision in Febrary, 2019, which was released to the parties two weeks ago. In the decision, the Commission asked the City of Montreal and two officers to pay Content $15,000 in moral damages. Laurin was also asked to pay $2,500 in punitive damages and Roy another $1,500 in punitive damages.

Compliance with the recommendation is not legally binding. In a statement, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, which helped Content with his complaint, said that if the city does not comply with the recommendations, they will escalate to the Human Rights Tribunal.